Classic Silverstone Classic Photos

This weekend one of the most significant historic racing events on the international calendar takes place; the Silverstone Classic.

The Silverstone Classic has been a main-stay for many years. Other events, such as the Goodwood Revival, may enjoy a higher status, but in my opinion, few events on the calendar combine both the quality and variety of the Silverstone Classic.

Back in 1993, when I was 21 years old and doing my OE, I decided to hire a car and drive from where I was living in London up to Silverstone for that years event. My main motivation for doing so was because at the time I was completely fixated with the old 1966-74 Can-Am sports car series. I already had a passion for motorsport history, and while there wasn't the massive available amount of information there is today on such things, I grabbed anything I could get. The Silverstone Classic had only been going a few years at the time, but was considered to be the most important historic racing event in Europe, so the magazines all did a good job promoting it and the fixtures that would be on show. For 1993, there would be a combined grid of Can-Am, 1960s/70s endurance sports cars, and 1970s racing sports cars. This was enough of a motivation to organize a trip.

At the time, while I had a real interest in motorsport history, I wasn't particularly knowledgeable on subjects other than those which took my personal interest, which, other than Can-Am, included American powered British and European GT and sports cars, American muscle and sports cars, and 1950s sports racing cars. For the most part, I was just looking forward to the adventure for what it was.

As it transpired, I enjoyed myself so much I returned again in 1994. The photos here I took during these two events, which I recently stumbled upon while down at our storage unit. Frustratingly, I also have the race programmes from both years, but they're buried somewhere in storage. I may need to try and dig them out to help ID some of these cars and the people who drove them.

Sorry for the quality of these images. My cheap little camera was a POS, and over time I'm sure the photos have deteriorated somewhat. Furthermore, I'm no photographer, I point and shoot, and hope for the best. But hopefully you enjoy these for what they are.